once, he waited for a moment or two, and then
tightened again, when to his great delight he found that he was no
longer dragging at something set hard, but at a yielding body, which he
drew easily to the edge of the pool by means of his long coil, before
dropping it and running to seize and repeat the middy's performance upon
himself.

"He's quite insensible," he gasped, as he drew the dripping lad right
out on to the driest part.

"That I'm not," panted the middy; "but another minute would have done
it."

He remained silent then, panting hard and struggling to recover his
breath, while Aleck untied the line and set his chest at liberty to act
as it should.

Then for some minutes nothing was said, the only sound heard being the
middy's hoarse breathing as he laboured hard to recover his regular
inspirations.

At last he spoke in an unpleasantly harsh, ill-humoured way.

"Well, aren't you going to have another try? It's lovely. Only wants
plenty of perseverance."

"Not I," replied Aleck. "You don't seem to have got on so very well."

"Got on as well as you did," snarled the middy. "Ugh! It was horrid.
Just as if, when I felt that I could hold my breath no longer, I was
suddenly seized and sucked into a great sink-hole, only the water was
running up instead of down."

"Yes, that's just how I felt," said Aleck.

"You couldn't have felt so bad as I did," said the lad, irritably and
speaking in the most inconsistent way. "I got my head rasped, too,
against the stones overhead, and it's bleeding fast. Look at it, will
you?"

Aleck examined the place, after opening the door of the lanthorn.

"It isn't bleeding," he said.

"Don't talk nonsense," cried the middy, irritably. "It smarts horribly,
and I can feel the blood trickling down the back of my neck."

"That's water out of your hair."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, certain. I can't even see a mark on your head."

"Well, there ought to be," grumbled the lad. "Aren't you going to have
another try?"

"No. Are you?"

"Not if I know it," replied the middy. "Once is quite enough for a trip
of that kind."

"I don't think it's possible to get out by swimming."

"Well, it doesn't seem like it; but the smugglers get in."

"Yes, at certain times."

"Then this is an uncertain time, I suppose!" said the middy, beginning
to dress.

"Hadn't we better get round and have a good rub with a bit of sail?"
asked Aleck.

"No; we can't carry our clothes wi